From Stay-At-Home Dad To State Representative

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:05):
And welcome back to Pastor Plex Podcast.
I'm your host, Pastor Plex,along with none other than
Pastor Holland.
How are you doing?
Hello.
Doing great.
And we have today a very, very,very, very special guest, John
Hash.
Uh, and I want you to introduceyourself with like tell us what
you're uh trying to run for anduh and kind of like where you're
going with your career rightnow.

SPEAKER_05 (00:26):
Okay, yeah.
Well, first off, thanks forhaving me here.
Um, my name is John Hash, andI'm running for Texas State
Representative of District 50.
District 50.
So yeah, first I'm gonna breakthat down.
State representatives, what dowe do?
Who are they?
All that stuff.
And then we're gonna go.
Yeah, are you going to are yougoing to DC?
Not exactly.
Nope.
I'm going to the DC of Texas.

(00:46):
Nice.
So that's here down the road.
Kind of works out, right?
Works out for you.
I don't have to go very far.
A lot of the other staterepresentatives who come from
Panhandle or you know out west,they they have to travel in,
spend a few days, go back.
Uh, that's a little bit morestrain on family.
So fortunately, we're veryclose.
But a state representative, uh,similar to how we view our
federal government that has uhan executive, a legislative, and

(01:10):
a judicial branch, we have thathere in Texas on the state
level.
So it is we have our executivewith the governor, lieutenant
governor, we have our uhlegislative, we have our own
house and our senate, and wealso have you know a Texas
Supreme Court judicial system.
So we are just mimicking on awhat I would say slightly
smaller scale.
Yeah.
So state representatives, theyare elected uh based upon the

(01:32):
district that they live in.
Uh, I believe we have 150 uhstate representatives uh broken
up across the state of Texas.
Uh and when we talk about how douh how do we just the other day
we had several uh proposedconstitutional amendments.
Yeah.
Those were the state.
To the state.
Right.
Yeah, state constitutionalamendments.

(01:53):
Uh those were written byrepresentatives and senators
here at the state level.
Okay.
They will discuss policy, theywill then work with lawyers to
write a bill.
That bill gets put forth into asubcommittee.
Uh, could be on education, couldbe on healthcare, could be on

(02:14):
veteran affairs, it getsdiscussed there.
It then gets put to a vote.
If it makes it out of thesubcommittee, it makes it to the
state house floor, which has uhall the members of the house can
then discuss uh that particularbill.
From there, it can go severalways, get kicked back to
committee for reevaluation.
If it doesn't pass, it can bepassed and then sent on to in

(02:37):
this case, uh, we're talkingabout from Senate or from House
to the Senate.
Uh, and they have to be able topass the same bill.
So if the Senate looks at it andthey make revisions, then that
gets passed back to confirmationfor the House to make sure that
we're all on the same page.
Uh so state reps, they representuh certain areas.
In Austin, we have about a dozenor so districts uh because dense

(03:01):
population and it all ispopulation-based.
Yeah.
Uh so the district 50 doesincorporate uh where we are
sitting today here in the WellsBranch neighborhood.
Yeah.
Uh we're kind of what I wouldsay is the northwest corner of
that district.
So where where does thatdistrict cover?

SPEAKER_02 (03:17):
Like what's all the areas?

SPEAKER_05 (03:18):
Yeah, so uh here we're the northwest corner, it
does cross I-35 to the east andit covers a portion of southern
Flugerville.
Okay.
Uh the defining line there isPecan uh Road, Pecan Drive.

SPEAKER_01 (03:31):
Yeah, like where the Pecan, West Pecan coffee shop
is, right?

SPEAKER_02 (03:34):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (03:34):
Yeah.
So if you live on the north sideof that street, I'm not your
representative.
Or what if if elected, I wouldnot be your representative
representative.
You live on the southern side ofthat street, then yeah, you're
part of District 50.
So um how far west do you go?
Uh that one goes all the waytill it hits 130.
Um I mean, oh, so yeah.
Oh, sorry, how far okay, how farwest?
East all the way 130.
East all the way to 130 east, itgoes to Mopak.

(03:56):
Okay.
Uh, we and we have a littlenorth kind of up toward 45.
Uh, it follows Mopak down.
It takes like two little hopacross Mopak, um, which I
believe those are apartmentcomplexes that it encapsulates.
So there's like two apartmentcomplexes that it goes whoop,
swings right around them.
Uh, then it comes back.
It goes along Breaker Boulevard.

(04:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (04:18):
Uh southern boundary or kind of.

SPEAKER_05 (04:21):
Yeah.
That's the south uh uh westportion.
South.
Okay.
Uh it then goes to Lamar.
Yep.
And then it goes south on Lamar.
Oh, wow.
And then from South Lamar goesto about 290.
Yeah.
Oh wow, that's pretty far downthere.
Then we're gonna stretch around290 and we're gonna make our way
back up almost all the way to130.
Uh, but since 130, you have abig chunk of Austin.

(04:42):
It's a big chunk of Austin,yeah.
All within Travis County.
It incorporates uh three schooldistricts because part of it
here up here we're in Round RockIST does have part of
Flugerville IST and Austin ISD.
So there's three districts uhthat are part of it.
Um yeah, so flugerville, it doesagain.
You're working with the city ofFlugerville, uh, Chamber of

(05:03):
Commerce of Flugerville, alsoAustin here.
Uh so that is where it is.
And and again, it's a Austinbeing a denser population versus
some that are it's a smallergeography, but a greater
population, if if that makessense.
They all tried to keep thepopulations roughly similar.
Right.
Uh, but again, yeah, smallgeography because of the
density.
Smaller geography, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (05:24):
Okay.
So uh so you're running for soyou know it's not like you just
got elected uh in on November4th.
You're looking for nextNovember, correct for the
midterms, if you if it's whatthey call them, right?

SPEAKER_05 (05:35):
Yes, yeah, so correct.
That is right.
The the last one was just uhamendments or propositions.
There were a few if you're inFlugerville or if you're in
other states listening to thispodcast, yeah.
You might have had your governoruh election or things like that.
Um flugerville just had theirmayor, but uh what I would be
first up is actually gonna beprimaries, those are first
obstacle uh when it comes torunning.

SPEAKER_02 (05:56):
And the reason why the a uh it's the district fifty
is open is James Tallerico is umI don't want resigning is the
right word, or he's like, orhe's going to run for he's
running, yeah, he's running forSenate.

SPEAKER_05 (06:08):
Um you can't run for two positions at the same time.
That makes sense.
So he made his choice to run forU.S.
Senate.
So now we're now for adiscussion about James, he's
taken uh I would say a big stepup going from state to U.S.
Yeah.
Uh and going from a place likeDistrict 50, uh, which has a
little over a hundred andsomething thousand uh people
within it, yeah, to now thestate of Texas, right?

(06:29):
Which is um because the Senate,we have two senators uh in the
state, uh, that is over thirtythirty million.
We we tipped that uh in 2024, 30million people.
So being uh Do you know who he'sgonna run?

SPEAKER_02 (06:40):
Is it Ted Cruz or Chancellor?

SPEAKER_05 (06:42):
So uh well all of those are actually gonna come to
fruition uh in March.
Oh, right primaries theprimaries first.
Yeah, we're gonna do theprimaries first.
So it's James Talerico and umColin Allred are uh Yeah, yeah,
yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (06:54):
He played football.

SPEAKER_05 (06:56):
Yeah, Baylor.
Yeah, and then for the Cowboys,I believe.
Played for a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Uh so Colin Allred, and then wehave uh John Cornyn, who is the
current incumbent uh senatorhere in Texas, uh and um former,
not former, but current umattorney general Ken Paxton has
also put in Oh, is he runningagainst Cruz or Cornyn?

SPEAKER_02 (07:16):
Cornyn.

SPEAKER_05 (07:17):
So Cruz was last night.
So yeah, Cornyn and so Cruz isalready Cruz is in, he'll be in
for another uh uh four moreyears uh after these midterms.
Um so yeah, so that is and thoseare gonna be state level
elections.
They're they're very big, veryexpensive.
Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 (07:36):
Yeah.
Okay, so all right, let's talkabout you just for a second,
like your history, and then likeyou know, I'd love if you can
clue that like your faithbackground and all that, it'd be
really cool.

SPEAKER_05 (07:46):
Yeah, so um I wasn't born in Texas.
I know if that's a shocking,sounds good.
That is the same.
I I wasn't born in Texas, but Igot here as fast as I could.
Truthfully, though, I didn'thave a say.
My dad worked for the military,so we moved around a lot.
Uh I was I was born inCalifornia, but we moved Texas,
California, Texas, California,Texas, California, I think about

(08:07):
a half dozen times between thetwo states.
Yeah.
Uh before he decided he wasgoing to retire.
Oh so uh having like a homebase, we really don't have it.
But when I was young, we didhave a little bit of a home base
with the church that we weregoing to in Waco for a few
years.
Um it was a Catholic churchthere, St.
Albans.
Uh, and then we were at aPresbyterian church in uh

(08:30):
Sacramento, Granite Bay area,which is where we're living in
in California.
Yeah.
Um, but that was up until I wasabout seven.

SPEAKER_03 (08:38):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (08:39):
So a lot of it for me was Sunday school.
It was very uh, you know, the Ilike to think of it as like it
was it was the happy days of,you know, when you hear about
stories, uh, biblical stories,we're talking about very, very
positive, very reaffirming atthat time.
And then my dad retired and westopped going to church.
We he retired, we moved to uh uhSouth Lake Tahoe, uh, and he

(09:02):
tried we tried out a few, andand it was more of like he
wasn't feeling them, and so wedidn't stay involved in any of
them.
But what we did do was BoyScouts.

SPEAKER_01 (09:13):
Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_05 (09:14):
And so my brother and I became very involved in
Boy Scouts, which kind of kept alittle bit of faith for both of
us uh because there is areligious background, I mean,
within Boy Scouts.

SPEAKER_03 (09:27):
What values?

SPEAKER_05 (09:28):
Yeah, so that's the you know, I can still recite to
you today the the scout oath andthe scout law because that was
just something that we did allthe time.
And sounds cool.
We we we made effort very muchat a young age to try and be a
part of it and live it.
And even now today, I know mybrother and I, when we think
about it, uh there are certainthings maybe we're not living up
to as much as we should, but weboth think about it.

(09:50):
We're both Eagle Scouts, uh, soit makes a big impact on our
lives.
Um, so growing up with scoutswas very important to our
family.
It was, you know, it was oursmall community.
Um, I know a lot of uh peoplewhen they have a church, they
have a community there, and sothat kind of became our
community uh with with scouts.

(10:10):
Um so that was like our pillarof you know, we were very much
taught uh do a good turn daily.
So as often as you could dosomething good for someone else.
Nice.
Uh and I don't know if you knowthe the his the history of of
Boy Scouts, how it kind of gotbrought to the United States.
Um so there was this journalist,his name was Bryce Boyce Boy

(10:33):
Boyce, last name was Boyce.
Anyways, he was lost in London.
The the story goes that he waslost in the London fog and
couldn't find his way back tolike a hotel, and a young man
approached him and said, Sir,can I help you?
Uh the young boy helped him backto his hotel.
Um, and he boyce went to offerhim like a little tip saying,

(10:53):
Thank you very much.
And he replied, Sorry, I'm ascout.
We don't accept uh rewards fordoing what's right.

SPEAKER_03 (10:59):
Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 (11:00):
And that's what like caught off.
According there, according tohistory or you know, weather
logical reports are like therewas no fog on that day.
It's it's just, but the truthis, yeah, a young man helped him
find his hotel.
He was lost in the world.
He needed it to be a foggy day,so he didn't look like a
complete imbecile.
Yeah, he needed a foggy day tofor there to be a reason why he
was lost um as a as a as a grownman in London.

(11:20):
But that is that is true.
So uh Scouts was very muchinstilled in us that we are uh
doing what is right and we arenot doing it with expectation of
reward.
This is not what was instilledin us at a young age.
So it kind of skept through.

SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
All right.
So then, like, did you you knowyou graduated from high school,
you were an Eagle Scout.
What did you do next?

SPEAKER_05 (11:40):
College.
Uh, but uh I was beneficial tohave a family that one have both
parents in my home each night,and my dad went to college, so
he's like, Hey, your next step,you know, you're going to
college.
Yeah.
And uh when we moved for ourfinal time, we moved back to
Texas in San Antonio.
So I ended up graduating in SanAntonio.
UTSA.
Uh yeah.
Well, I uh for for uh highschool.

(12:01):
Oh, high school.
We moved back to in the middleof high school.
My dad picked us up and moved usback to Texas.
Yeah, wasn't it fun?
Right, yeah, that's brutal.
But uh a couple of things abouthaving to move so many times as
a young kid, you learn to justmake friends everywhere you go.
So that's that's a great thatwas a positive thing about that.
But moved to high school uh inSan Antonio and then graduated,
ended up doing one year at UTSAbefore I transferred to the

(12:24):
University of Texas at Austin.
So that's what that's whatbrought me to Austin the first.
Um, and also my brother, uh whois immensely smart, got accepted
as an out-of-state student toAustin, UT Austin from
California.
He's he's a couple yearsearlier.
He's just super smart guy,bright.
Um, and that's what uh kind ofbrought my family back to Texas

(12:46):
uh because my mom did not wantto be too far from him.
Right.
Like we can be an hour and ahalf, but not three, four states
away.
Nice.

SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
So when when did you kind of get reconnected to
church at that, you know, if youkind of drifted away from it,
Boy Scouts, and then when didre-engaging in church?

SPEAKER_05 (13:01):
Reengaging in church came in college uh through a few
means.
I had a friend who just like youjust gotta go with me.
And I was like, okay, I'll go.
Nice.
I I went a couple times, but uh,and I'm not gonna knock on it,
I'm not gonna mention, but itwas just overwhelming the first
two times I went with him.
I said, Whoa, dude, there's likea thousand people here.
Like, what is this?
It it wasn't what I was used toor what I had memories of, and

(13:25):
so I was like, I was like, ohno, I'm I'm I kind of was a bit
scared about it because it wasit was overwhelming.
There were so many people.
Huh.

SPEAKER_02 (13:33):
Um was it a church or was it it was it was uh uh
what's it called?

SPEAKER_01 (13:38):
Uh student ministry.

SPEAKER_05 (13:40):
No, no, no.
He he we went to uh this waswhen I was at UTSA and we went
to uh the first uh San AntonioBaptist downtown there and like
it was packed packed, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (13:51):
Oh wow, that's kind of fun.
Okay, so then you came to UT.

SPEAKER_05 (13:54):
Came to UT and um I think what really happened was
meeting a few people that said,Hey, come out and check uh the
Austin Stone.
Yeah, yeah.
We went and did that for thedowntown uh uh the the like
campus one uh that's on AustinHigh.

SPEAKER_01 (14:10):
Yeah, Austin High School, yeah.
Great.

SPEAKER_05 (14:11):
So yeah, that's where I kind of started, okay.
I'm kind of let's get back intoit a little bit.
Let's try and refill the stuff.
That is that wasn't a smallcrowd.
That wasn't a small crowdeither, but uh having more
people there that I knew.
Okay, that was very helpful.
Yeah, that was helpful becauseyes, I you know, I love this
guy, Sam, who's the one thattook me to the San Antonio
Baptist, but it was just he andI, and I was like, we know
nobody here, dude.
You're from Amarillo.

(14:32):
I'm brand new to the likereintroducing into the church,
like we know nobody, and so thatwas a little intimidating for me
at the time.

SPEAKER_02 (14:39):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Okay, so then you go to thestone, yeah, and uh uh meet your
wife there.

SPEAKER_05 (14:46):
Or well, how did that happen?
So actually, I met my wife andshe had heard from a friend
about the stone, yeah, but wedidn't meet at the Austin Stone.
We met um prior, we met in anorganization on campus.
It was about sports.
Uh we both love playing sports,watching sports, all kinds of
stuff.
And so we met uh there, and thenwe had a mutual friend that

(15:06):
said, Hey, you know, let's checkout the stone.
I want to go.
He wanted to go, he was fromHouston.
I think that was like a thing.
A lot of college kids weretrying to find a place, yeah.
Uh a church community that theycould go to that they felt
comfortable.
So that's where we we attendedthe stone and and we did for a
while.
Um, and then I graduated.
Yep.
And I had to go back to SanAntonio, not like uh not in a

(15:29):
bad way.

SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
Um like well, you had to go to San Antonio.

SPEAKER_05 (15:32):
And this was uh, yeah, so I had to go to San
Antonio uh for my first job, andit was as a college advisor.
Um, and I was a college advisorat a high school at Roosevelt
High School, uh down there, GoRough Riders.

SPEAKER_03 (15:44):
Okay.

SPEAKER_05 (15:44):
Uh but um it was a program built for uh near peer
uh assistance with high schoolstudents on their next steps.

SPEAKER_03 (15:53):
Okay.

SPEAKER_05 (15:53):
So Advise Texas, you were like the college advisor,
but we did more as much as wecould, more than just advising
them for college.
It was do you want anapprenticeship program or a
certain certification programthat we can get you in touch
with?
Do you want uh are you thinkingabout military?
And I'll help you take yourASVAB, uh, I'll get you signed
up for it.
But uh I I will tell you, Chris,I always I always did say, can

(16:17):
you do one semester of communitycollege and make sure college is
not fit for you?
Because it's it's six months,and if you don't like it, hey,
then let's get you into themilitary.

SPEAKER_03 (16:26):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (16:26):
But if if you go into the army and you realize if
you don't like it, like there'sno quitting.
There's no quitting.
That is a four or five yearcommitment sometimes, what
you're signing for.
I said, okay, so let's makesure.

SPEAKER_02 (16:36):
Especially when they get a bonus to you and you're
like, oh, ten thousand dollarsfor just two or three more
years.
Yeah, I'm in.

SPEAKER_05 (16:41):
So I did encourage kids, I was like, hey, just try
college.
Maybe it's maybe it's highschool that that's really not
your thing, and not necessarilylearning at a university or or
at a community college.
Uh, but depending upon whatschool the the program placed
people, uh recent college gradsall over the state.
El Paso, Dallas, Houston, theValley, Austin, San Antonio.

(17:02):
Yeah, and some were smallschools that had like 200 people
and some were giant schools.
We had a little over 2,000students at Roosevelt High
School.

SPEAKER_03 (17:11):
Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_05 (17:12):
Uh, about almost 600 were seniors that year.
And uh, so it was one of myresponsibilities.
And it was to help alleviate alot of the pressure on uh
guidance counselors.
Sure.
Um, and many of the guidancecounselors hadn't been in
college for a decade or so ormore.
Um, and having just been there,I was able to answer questions
for kids.

SPEAKER_02 (17:32):
Okay, so it was like that was your first gig out of
college.

SPEAKER_05 (17:34):
That was my first gig out of college, and uh what
got me into it was realizing um,you know, again, I was fortunate
to have a dad that went tocollege, both parents in my home
that were very supportive ofwhatever we're gonna do.
Yeah, but then realizing even onmy mom's side of my family,
there was a few that didn'tgraduate, cousins uh who didn't
graduate high school.
They dropped out of high school.

(17:54):
We had out of 16 of us, uh fourof us went to college, uh, three
of us graduated.
So I wanted to try to make adifference there.
I wanted I wanted to again comeback and think about how am I
gonna help those that that needit.
Right as they need it.
So that's that's really kind ofwhere that base is stuck.

(18:15):
Uh and then they were like,okay, you can either do one more
year of this advising, but twoyears max.
Right.
Because they want near peer.
They want somebody who's just incollege, who's just done
scholarship applications and andfinancial aid talks and that
experience.
They want to kind of keep thatfresh.
Uh so I said, okay, and I foundanother outreach program through

(18:36):
the University of Texas uh thatI had met before.
And actually, my girlfriend, whois my wife now girlfriend at the
time, she she was a student whohad participated in their
program.
And so I met all of them.
Uh, even before I applied, I Iknew them, uh, knew the the
team.
Uh it was called GeoForce, andit was a science-based,

(18:58):
geoscience-based outreachprogram.
Oh, nice.
Uh, and we worked with primarilystudents in southwest Texas, so
Eagle Pass, Del Rio, Uvalde,yeah, and all the tiny towns
that are around, which is wheremy wife's from.
She's from Catula, Texas, whichis about a halfway between San
Antonio and Laredo.
Oh, fun.
Uh, tiny town.

(19:18):
But that was one of theirregions.
Uh, and then Houston was theother region.
So worked a lot with withGeoForce in Houston.
And then again, this was anotherprogram taking kids from these
schools that maybe don't havescience teachers, or science is
not a big uh proponent for theirschools, uh, and allowing them
to experience hands-on.

(19:39):
We're we're going outside theclassroom, we're gonna learn
about geoscience, we're gonnatake you to it and we're gonna
look at it directly.
We're not gonna look at apicture of it.
We're gonna bring in uh ateacher, we're gonna bring in a
professor, we're gonna have youknow activities outside where we
don't want you to just be stuckin a room all day with us.
Um so that's what we did.

(20:01):
I was I was a coordinator forthat program.
I would lead 45 students and 10staff to various regions,
sometimes outside of the state,um Oregon, Washington, or
Arizona to take them to wherethe geology is.

SPEAKER_03 (20:14):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (20:15):
Uh and we did I did that for a little over a decade.
Oh, wow, that was like yourthing.
I was that became my thing.
Uh I kind of rose through theranks as the coordinator to
slowly be the one that uh ledout outside of our director, I
was leading the othercoordinators, training them.
Oh, it's uh for for uh again,it's about that one was really

(20:35):
based in logistical planning andsafety.
How can we make sure our summerprograms are safe?

SPEAKER_03 (20:41):
Right.

SPEAKER_05 (20:41):
Uh, but then also what are we doing for these kids
beyond just a summer program?
How are we building it out forthem?
Uh the last thing we want to dois to say, hey, here's us for a
couple of summers, and thenboom, you're you're gone out the
door, and we never see youagain.
We we we wanted to buildrelationships with these kids
and know that if they hadquestions, they can still come

(21:02):
back to us uh about againcollege life when they're trying
to make these big decisions intheir lives.
What am I gonna do for the restof my life?
What am I gonna study?
Uh, and those kinds of thingsit's okay.
She didn't do that.
Um so so yeah, that was kind oflike the premise behind it was
just trying to make sure that weuh are really taking care of

(21:25):
these kids that we interactwith.
Uh so that's that's where itwas.
And I was there until I became adad.
Okay.
And when my daughter was born,uh, my wife and I had a deal.
We said, hey, whoever is kind ofmaking more money, doing really
better, they need to be the onethat stays in that job, and the
other will step aside home andbe a stay-at-home parent.

(21:46):
Okay.
Uh my wife, who was uh workinguh in the healthcare field,
yeah, left during COVID andstarted uh with a a tech
company, tech company.
Oh, nice.
So she just took off from there,did super awesome with that
company, and I was like, you doyou, and I will take a little
change of pace.
I will I'll be a stay-at-homedad.

(22:08):
Um, which I'm actually just sothankful for uh these first two
years spending with my daughteruh have been really impactful
for me.
Um and and actually this lastyear has been okay, how do we
want to uh think about our timetogether and then our time as a

(22:30):
family and going to church too?
So we we made like a an effortthis year to to start going back
to stone during COVID.
We had slowed down again andstopped.
Uh you know, we were trying todo some online uh listen super
hard.
It was very difficult, verydifficult.
So hard.
Uh but after that, we then okay,well let's let's make an effort.
Like I I probably need to domore effort on my part uh for

(22:54):
that.
So we we started back up again,uh going to the Austin Stone
North Campus.

SPEAKER_02 (22:58):
North campus?
Yeah.
Okay.
So um oh that's awesome.
So how long have you been goingthere now?

SPEAKER_05 (23:03):
Uh we we just started at the beginning of the
year.
So I guess we're in Novembernow, so it's about 10 months.
Minus minus, you know, if we'reout of town and sure, sure,
sure.

SPEAKER_00 (23:11):
Uh that's awesome.
I got a question.
Um, kind of related, you'resharing stuff about your
education.
And so in uh Texas StateRepresentative, you're in the
legislative kind of um focus,right?
So you're lawmaking and stufflike that.
Do you have uh like what are therequirements education-wise for
this position?

SPEAKER_05 (23:29):
Great question.
Oh my gosh, Holland.
I didn't know until I was I whenwhen James made that decision to
step up to U.S.
Senate.
Uh, and I had been thinkingabout wanting to run, but then I
said, okay, well, I'm gonna jumpin with two feet.
What do I need?
What do I need to make sure Ihave?
You need to be like 18 and aresident of the district in

(23:49):
which you are uh running.
And uh to get on to the ballot,it's$750.

SPEAKER_00 (23:56):
$750.
$750.

SPEAKER_05 (24:00):
You don't need a law degree.
You don't need a law degree.
And actually, like I can we canwe like jump back a little bit
because um being arepresentative, that actually in
in my opinion, it's okay to havea law degree, but you are also
not always if you have just ifall your representatives are all
lawyers, they're not truthfullyrepresentative of the community.

(24:22):
You need a mix of people, youneed educators, you need people
in healthcare, people in theservice industry to to want to
step up to those roles a lot.

SPEAKER_00 (24:31):
Because you have lawyers who are gonna make all
your stuff for you, they'regonna help you write it.
They're gonna help you writethis.

SPEAKER_02 (24:36):
Because you have a staff.
I assume like James Tallerico,for example, has a some sort of
a staff.

SPEAKER_05 (24:40):
Yeah, you'll have a small staff that'll help you
with the policymaking.
They'll you're like a chief ofstaff and maybe you know, one to
two, depending upon also.
Okay, I told you all like moneymakes a difference.

SPEAKER_03 (24:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (24:50):
If if you can use campaign funds, so if I raised a
ton of money, I can hire morepeople throughout the year to be
part of my staff because I canuse campaign funds to pay for uh
full-time staff if elected.
Oh, wow.
So the people who fundraise morecan utilize those funds to say,
Oh, I need a new analyst forthis.

(25:12):
I have, you know, 40K, I canhire somebody out uh part-time
and and and get somebody else onboard, which there is an
allotment from the state on onstaffing, but if you want to
increase that, it comes fromyour campaign.

SPEAKER_01 (25:26):
Oh, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 (25:27):
And so the the big the big fundraisers can really
staff themselves out more.
Uh, but there always is lawservicing, uh, you know, lawyers
that are there at the Capitolthat will help you.
You come to them with yourpolicy and you say, okay, we
need to write policy about this.
Uh so yeah, you don't need to bea lawyer.
You don't need to uh like Icould run if I want to run now.

SPEAKER_00 (25:49):
Listen, if I get if I can round up 750 bucks, then I
could run.

SPEAKER_05 (25:53):
Actually, you can you can round up 750 bucks, or
you can also round upsignatures.

SPEAKER_02 (25:58):
Okay.
Oh, really?

SPEAKER_05 (25:59):
Yes.

SPEAKER_02 (25:59):
So instead of paying, you could get like 750
signatures or something.

SPEAKER_05 (26:03):
Uh yeah, it's it's uh 500 signatures, but you
always got to shoot for doublebecause what they do is the
state then audits thosesignatures to make sure they
have to be the people in yourdistrict, they have to be
registered to vote, they have toand and even if somebody like
puts their wrong address or likewrites ineligible.

SPEAKER_01 (26:18):
Wow, who go who checks that?
All right, that's wild.

SPEAKER_05 (26:20):
There are people they go through and they check
them, and and I'll give you aquick story about why it's very
important to check that.
Yeah, there was a gentleman whowas running for state house in
Illinois that the incumbent saidthat they weren't going to run,
but then at the last minutedecided to.
Now, Illinois has a slightlydifferent regulation.
You have to do a small fee andsignatures.

(26:42):
Texas, it's an either or.
But so the incumbent who, youknow, an incumbent is the the
percentages of winning if you'rean incumbent are skyrocketed
high.
Yeah.
Uh but this incumbent did notget all the signatures they
needed.
Oh, wow.
Because they decided so theythey turned around so late.
They didn't get all thesignatures and they got audited

(27:03):
and they were kicked back.
Well, the person who uh decidedthey were gonna run and started
on their political career wasBarack Obama.

SPEAKER_02 (27:11):
Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_05 (27:12):
He got into that because the incumbent for that
state house seat did not get allof their signatures.
Wow.
That's a good story.
It's a good story.
And that started him on histrajectory.
And and um so yeah, it you can,but also$750.

SPEAKER_02 (27:31):
Which which route did you go?
500 signatures or so I'm stillin the process of the
signatures.

SPEAKER_05 (27:35):
Oh, you know, I'm but I'm I'm I have Hilarious.
But you're going the signatureroute.
I am going the signature route,but I definitely have the a
little bit of seed money thatstarted my campaign to say,
like, hey, I've set this aside.
I'm not spending this$750because I know if I don't hit my
numbers, then I am going to makesure I'm on that ballot.
I'm not gonna do any kind of uhuh uh second guessing.

SPEAKER_02 (27:57):
So how so how does this affect your uh decision to
be a stay-at-home dad?
Like, because being astay-at-home dad, and then also
being a Texas representative iskind of like that might put a
little does that like shift theplans now is she's gonna stay at
home?

SPEAKER_05 (28:12):
Uh or it it does put a little uh little hinder uh
into into our plans.

SPEAKER_01 (28:18):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (28:19):
Uh, but we are trying to develop, okay, we have
option A, option B, option C.
Uh because truthfully, March uhprimaries, that's my first
hurdle to overcome.
Yeah, right.
If I don't make it past thathurdle, well I'll still stay at
home, Dad.
It was a good run.
It was a good run.
And but that's not gonna stop mefrom now becoming just more
involved in certain areas.
Uh and then once it comes toactual election day, it it will

(28:41):
actually be January 2027 by thetime I actually go into office.
That would be the first few daysthat I go in.
It's January 2027.

SPEAKER_00 (28:51):
And then once you're in office, is this like uh
Monday through Friday, nine tofive kind of deal?
Or is it like I know you havelike a session.
Yeah, it's a session whereyou're like working crazy hours
and the rest of the year, likewhat's your work schedule like a
slave flesh session, right?

SPEAKER_05 (29:04):
The session starts in January and it goes until
May.
Um crazy busy during that.
Crazy busy during those likefive months.

SPEAKER_02 (29:11):
So that's like when you first get elected from
January to May, you're doing allthe stuff.
Is that right?
And then Yeah.
So uh um sorry, I cut you off.
I was just like, um because youyou only do you do session every
other year.
Yeah.
So like you get one year to uhwait to go.
You get one year to um uh to runfor election and then one year

(29:32):
to do the work.
Is then is that would that be agood way to put that?

SPEAKER_05 (29:34):
That's kind of a good way to put it because and
again, when you're the incumbentand you have that that campaign
funds when I talked about youcan hold on to, you know, be
employing your staff.
You can be doing the work towriting those bills that you
want so that when you come inday one, right, you are
submitting a bill.
Day two, I got another bill.
Day three, I got another bill sothat we can be efficient in our

(29:56):
work during this five monthsession.
So So um sense.
Yes, right now my time leadingup until election is going to be
campaigning, make sure that Ihave the people to get those
votes so that I'm I'm there.
But then also preparing anybills that you'd want to submit.
Like are you doing?
So actually what I'm doing islooking at bills that did not
pass and reevaluate and say,okay, like, does this seem like

(30:18):
a good bill?
Why didn't it pass?
Okay, let's revamp it maybe andthink about how we can change it
so we can come to an agreementfrom each side.
And I think that's one of theeasier ways to do that of like
what bills didn't pass, whydidn't they pass?
And let's take a look at it.

SPEAKER_01 (30:34):
Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_05 (30:35):
Uh and I think that's uh sorry, I think that's
just a way for me right now toutilize my time wisely rather
than again diving into datasets, trying to develop policy
off of that.
I'm gonna try and take, okay,they've done the work and let's
see what needs to be donefurther to help bring that
together so we can pass it.

SPEAKER_02 (30:54):
Okay, yeah.
So, like, what was the thinglike that you're like, oh, I am
called.
I don't know if that's the rightword.
I want to.
Like, what was it like theconversation with your wife?
You're said that you're atchurch one day.
What what was the thing that waslike, I'm gonna go run uh for
office?

SPEAKER_05 (31:11):
Well, it actually started with I want to volunteer
more, I want to volunteer more.
Um, I want to volunteer with youknow campaigns that I feel
passionate about.
And that's how it kind ofstarted.
And then I so I was telling mywife, um, now that I'm feeling
more comfortable as astay-at-home dad, that first
year, uh a little little likeworried about keeping a baby
alive and all of that.

(31:33):
I'm just gonna be honest, it wasvery, I was very focused on on
that and and and her um for mydaughter.
After that, now I'm like, okay,I I have a little bit more
comfort.
I feel like now we can get moreinvolved.
I feel you know better if I needto say, hey, I'm gonna go out
and do this for three hours ifsomebody can babysit, you know,
more comfortable.
Uh and so I told my wife, Isaid, I want to start

(31:55):
volunteering more.
I want to, you know, so Istarted looking out for uh
things that I could become apart of.
And you know, James is ourrepresentative here.
I was like, okay, well, youknow, if I want to learn it, his
campaign to re-elect, okay, I'lljump in and I'll I'll learn what
it's like to be in a campaign.
Um, you know, what are the insand outs?
And then when when he decided, Iwas like, well, he's not running

(32:18):
for House District 50 anymore.
And I told my wife, I was like,somebody needs to do something
about that.
Like we can't uh you know,something needs to be done.
So she looked at me and she waslike, You've been talking about
wanting to become more involved.
Uh, you know, I have my mydegrees in history and politics,
you know, political science.

(32:38):
So you know it wasn't this isn'tlike a super far jump for me to
say, right, you know, going fromone to another, you know,
politics has always kind of beenin my background.
Anytime there's news, usually mywife's like, Hey, what's the
news?
And I'll fill her in becausethat's that's what I'll try to
absorb throughout the day.
Um, and even so, being uh beinga stay-at-home dad, uh, I I took

(32:59):
that opportunity as uh if I havelet me let me rephrase this.
Again, going back to being ascout, there's a there's a
portion in that that uh scoutoath that talks about keeping
yourself mentally awake.
When uh my daughter and we wereI was taking my dog for walks
each day, and I realized likehere is an hour to two hours

(33:20):
that nothing is going on.
What can I do to fill this time?
At first, I was like, Oh, putsome music.
I don't know, music isn't doingit for me.
Music is, yeah, it's kind oflike I'm wasting a little bit of
time.
So then I put on like NPR and Iwas like, okay, NPR is good for
like 20 minutes and then itreruns, and then you can listen
to NPR, it's really boring.
And so I was like, I can do NPR.

(33:41):
So then I started listening tobooks.
Nice.
I started doing audio books asmuch as I could, and my goal was
to have books that are from bothsides.
I picked books that were on uhpoverty or or uh memoirs of
people, you know, like JohnMcCain, Obama, uh Liz Cheney, uh

(34:05):
book on, you know, uh fromDesmond Howard on poverty.
So I tried to keep myself notjust in one compartment.
I want to say I wanted to hearfrom everybody so that I can
understand, you know, ifsomebody has a different opinion
of me, hopefully I'm doing mybest to understand where they're
coming from.
So I took that, I took that timeto really start diving into some

(34:27):
of these things, and they wereall very pol politically based.
Sure.
Um, so then again, talking to mywife a lot about like I would
give her updates on my book thatI'm reading this week.
And then it kind of came to thepoint where again, James decided
to run for US Senate.
She's like, You've been talkingabout this.
Right.
What is holding you up?

(34:47):
So it was it was a a push frommy wife to say, like, this is
your what you've kind of dreamtabout a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 (34:54):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (34:55):
So let's go for it.

SPEAKER_02 (34:56):
So like James Tallerico is like one of those
guys that's been very like hewas on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Uh yeah, and you know, he he isa guy that kind of works across
the aisle more than more thanmost, but is very left.
I mean, if if I is where I wouldsay like as a he's a you know,
die in the old progressivedemocrat.

(35:17):
And so for us, we're like,that's kind of opposite of the
spectrum from where we're at.
But would love to kind of hearlike what are the things that
you thought were like, man, hekilled it on like man, this is
like Talo Rico crushed it onthis issue, and I really want to
follow that.

SPEAKER_05 (35:34):
Okay.
So yeah, Chris, Holland, you'reprobably gonna find me a little
bit left too.
All right.
It's fine, it's fine.
Okay.
Um, but there are a few things,and I I was like, okay, remember
when I was talking about divinginto some of these bills that
you know didn't get passed orwhatever.
So it also led me into likelooking.
How many times have y'all lookedto see what your state
representative has actuallyfiled?
Zero.

(35:54):
Zero.
It's all on the website.
It's very actually easy to lookup if you want to see.
Man, what does my rep even do?

SPEAKER_00 (36:01):
Yeah, I've looked at stuff.
I've followed him like on socialmedia and see, but in order to
find actual bills, um, like alist of them, I didn't even know
you could do that.
So I'm familiar with stuff fromsocial media, but to know, you
know, tell us more.

SPEAKER_05 (36:14):
Yeah.
So I started with social mediawith James too.
And so um really this the stateholds on to it all and it'll
give you a list.
It'll tell you how many theyauthored, co-authored, andor
sponsored.
So where do you find that?
It's on the the state website.

SPEAKER_02 (36:28):
Uh the Texas.gov something.

SPEAKER_05 (36:30):
Uh uh, it's the Secretary of States who will
hold a lot of that information.
Um, and actually, I think thebest way to go about it is just
Texas House representatives andit'll take you to the Texas
House website.
And then you there you can lookup who your representative is.
So especially if you don't livein District 50, whoever's
listening here, if you'reoutside of that, look up your
representative and you can seewhat have they authored uh for

(36:54):
each legislative session thatthey are part of.
So it does take a little bit offootwork because it'll tell
it'll show you right now the89th legislative session.
So that's that was this last uhuh last last 20, well, 2025.
Right.
Yeah, that's that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (37:09):
It was January to May of 2025.

SPEAKER_05 (37:12):
It really just happened.
Right.
Uh so it'll go through all whatthey submitted there.
And then you can look up eachbill that they wrote or authored
and co-authored, and you canthen click on that bill, it'll
show you the text and it'll showyou how did it progress.
Yeah, yeah.
It was presented to the floor,it was sent to a committee.
Did it make it out of thecommittee?
Did it go for a vote?
It'll it'll give you a littletimeline, a little timeline of

(37:34):
it, and then it'll also show youwhat the original text was, PDF
versions, original text, and ifit was updated or or changed, so
you can you can really look atsome of those.
So I did, I have been looking atsome of those, and uh some that
I wanted to like highlight andthat I thought was like, okay.
Um one that definitely that thatmade it across was um creation

(37:59):
of a commission on marriage andfamily.
Yeah.
So he co-authored a bill thatcreated a commission that did
pass, and it is to investigateTexas families and what is
happening to them.
Why is divorce rate high?
Are they taking classes beforethey're getting married?
Who is authorizing marriages?

(38:21):
Uh in when there's families,when there are children
involved, you know, what kind ofclasses uh are they taking
before there's a break in thefamily?
Yeah.
Uh so it's supposed toinvestigate to try and build
stronger um support for familieshere in Texas.
Uh and their report's gonna comeout at the, I think it's like

(38:41):
the end of 2026.

SPEAKER_02 (38:42):
So essentially at the end of that, it'll say,
like, oh, okay, the reason whypeople are getting divorced uh
is they went to Vegas and thencame back and or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 (38:50):
Yeah, yeah.
It's gonna come back.
Hey, we have uh this many peoplethat that got married that did
not take any kind of premaritalclasses, uh, so they didn't have
any kind of preparation for whatmarriage is like because
marriage is a big step in ourlife.
Yeah, I mean I'm very thankfulfor the the premarital class
that I got through the AustinStone, who's you know, kept me
uh in touch with a lot ofpeople.

(39:11):
Um, but yeah, so that's whatit's gonna do.
It's gonna try to evaluate whywe have the divorce rate that we
do here in Texas, uh, why wehave uh families that have just
single uh single parent uhfamilies, uh, and say, what can
we recommend to try and mendthis situation?
Because, you know, um again, I'msuper thankful that I grew up

(39:33):
with both parents in thehousehold.
I'm I'm so thankful for that.
And when we experience or, youknow, when kids experience that,
it is beneficial for them whenthey have the two parents in the
household.
Right.
And it it and and havingexperien having worked with high
school students of all varyingeconomic backgrounds in their
family, it definitely made adifference.

(39:53):
You could you could see whenboth parents were involved very
eager to assist, or what wasbenefit beneficial for their kid
versus parents that were latepicking their kid up who had
been gone for a week.
Like you know, there were timeswhere I'd be waiting at an
airport with a kid for an hourand a half, two hours, and we
had been gone for a week.
It was like, hey, everything wasscheduled to be picked up, but

(40:15):
parents were on their own time.
So that's hard.
It yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (40:21):
Uh okay, so that like that.
What about things like um likewhat other did what what did uh
Talerico author that you're likebecause he author he authored
that bill.
He was a co-author.
Or it's a res is it a resolutionthat he or what was that?
That was a house bill.
So a house bill was like, hey,we commissioned this study.

SPEAKER_04 (40:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (40:39):
Okay.

SPEAKER_05 (40:39):
And then what what other uh bills did he do that
you um there was one that didn'tmake it out that I thought was
actually pretty interesting foruh healthcare?
It was called a prescriptiondrug purchasing pool that would
help employers pull andinsurance plans pull
prescription prescription drugpurchases to help alleviate
costs of prescription drugs.

(41:00):
Yeah.
Um and that one didn't make itout of committee.
I don't know why.
So, but um there are uh when wedive further, I haven't I you
know more diving to do.
You can go in and see that theyhave notes on it.

SPEAKER_00 (41:14):
Um yeah, I got it pulled up here.
I found it for I'm I'm uh 51,but uh I just pulled up his on
50, and he's got 68 billssubmitted, and yeah, you can see
them on just a list.
That's wild.

SPEAKER_03 (41:28):
Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (41:28):
And there's a little, you know, each one has a
topic line to show you.
So if it's like, oh, this seemsinteresting, let me look more
into it.
Uh others are kind of basic, andyou're like, okay, this is maybe
a a correction of literature orcorrection of wording in a
particular bill, so there can bean amendments in there.
And that's the thing about whyit's important to, you know,
when the lawyers are makingthis, because words that are

(41:52):
used are very important.

SPEAKER_03 (41:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (41:55):
And um, I always like to when I tell people why
that's so important.
Um, I give this quick littlestory uh that I was in um jury
duty.
I didn't get selected becausethe case involved kids and
having worked with kids, theydidn't want me to part as a
jury.
But the judge sat us down forabout an hour and um he he

(42:15):
really talked to us about theuse of words and why it's so
important.
Because um, well, let me justkind of give you all this test.
If I were to say, finish thisquote or sentence, uh, you are
innocent until proven guilty,until proven guilty.
And that's what everybody says,but it is wrong.
That's what we hear in themovies and in TV shows, and it's

(42:35):
that word until because untilmeans it will eventually come to
fruition.
Like this person is innocentuntil we prove them guilty, and
until carries that context thatit will happen.
And so he hammered into us it isunless unless.
And so he said, but the problemis TVs and movies, they carry

(42:56):
this, and this word untilalways, but even though it
doesn't seem like it at first,here when we sit in the
courtrooms, like that carries alittle bit into everybody's mind
until like, well, he's innocentuntil we prove him guilty.
Okay.
So that's why it's superimportant to make sure when
these lawyers and policymakersare writing laws, why words

(43:16):
matter, sometimes it's supervague, and that actually can
kill um a bill if it's just toovague because uh policymakers
want a little bit of flexibilityabout it.
But so they say, okay, well,let's make it a little bit more
vague and not so specific.
And there are pros and cons tothat, um, because it allows for

(43:38):
interpretation for futuregenerations.
So, like um the TexasConstitution, we have quite a
few amendments, and that'sbecause we were pretty specific
in our original writing of theTexas Constitution.
So we have to kind of come backand say, well, you know, things
should not, if if there's aproblem between people, it
shouldn't be, you know, if it'smore than five dollars, you
know, which was a lot of moneyback in 1836, right?

(44:01):
Versus now it's five dollars.
Does that go to a criminal courtwith a uh, you know, a different
jury, or should that be handledin civil and and lower?
So uh use the proper use ofwords, very specific, very um
meaningful when writing theselaws.
And so it makes a difference.

SPEAKER_02 (44:17):
Yeah, uh one of the things like I'm just kind of
looking through his uh things heproposed.
Uh did you have any were youjust on the campaign, or were
you actually part of any likesort of like volunteer staff
role or like no?

SPEAKER_05 (44:29):
I just I just did a little bit of oh, sorry, I
sorry, I just did a little bitof uh discussion with people in
the neighborhood about him.
But to be honest with you, uheverybody in the Wells Branch
neighborhood knows James knowsof him or knows him because
that's this is where he, youknow, his dad goes to church
right down the street at St.

SPEAKER_02 (44:46):
Andrews from Round Rock, right?
Uh yeah, he went to Round Rockhigh.
I think he grew up in WellsBranch.

SPEAKER_05 (44:52):
Okay.
Yeah, well his his yeah, hisfamily lives here now.
So it's everybody who's like, Ohyeah, I know James.
I'm like, I don't really need toex, you know, explain to you
what his positions are on a lotof things because he's you know,
you you know him.

SPEAKER_02 (45:02):
Yeah, yeah.
So one of the things that he putout there, I'd love to hear your
thought on this.
I obviously I know you didn'twrite the bill, but he put uh
reproductive health accessprotects out of state abortion
travel, expands contraceptioncoverage under state insurance.
So obviously it did it gotblocked in the Senate, but like
that was his plan.
It was like, hey, I know Texashas banned abortion.
Um like I want to send thisthing to uh other states.

(45:26):
What was your what are yourthoughts on that?

SPEAKER_05 (45:28):
So yeah, um, first I always want to kind of any
discussion about abortion, Iwant to emphasize I am a man and
I will not have that decisionever placed upon me, really.
Like um so talking to my wife alot about this.
That's that's kind of like oneof the cornerstones that I use
is like, okay, talk to me aboutit.

(45:50):
Um and she said, Well, you'renever gonna experience it being
pregnant.
I'm a guy.
So want you to listen to youknow what I have to say.
Um, so when he went through withthat, I said, Okay, uh when well
when Roe v.
Wade uh was overturned uhseveral years ago, uh that kind
of was like, well, it it it tookit back to the states.

(46:12):
That's what it didn't it didn'tnecessarily ban abortion, right?
Roe v.
Wade uh overturning with theDobbs Jackson, like that didn't
uh outlaw it, it it returnedthat decision back to the
states.
Right.
So the state of Texas hadalready a bill on hand that if
it ever got overturned, it wouldenact uh very quickly.
Uh and when we returned thingsto the states, but then we

(46:33):
started saying, well, you can'tgo to a different state to do
it, even if that other statedoes allow it.
Missouri was trying to enactsome uh that made it uh illegal
to travel between state lines toreceive that abortion.
And I think that was a littleoverstepping for a state to say
you can't travel between statelines if you want to do that.
Now the state again, it's it'sdeciding what can be done within

(46:56):
state boundaries.
Now, if if if you're travelingoutside of the state, again,
that is your they're right.
If that other state allows it,if if a state like California,
New Mexico, if they allow it andyou want to go there for that,
then that is your right.

SPEAKER_02 (47:16):
Yeah, I guess my my hardest part with that is like
as Christians, we look at, youknow, that it is such a super
tough conversation.
You know, it's murder, right?
So any whether it's in a woman'sbody or my body, like I think
the reason why it becomes such avaluable thing, it's like human
dignity, and you get to a placewhere now all of a sudden you're
ending someone's life before iteven started.

(47:38):
And man, that's that's adangerous place to go.
And I understand people are inhard situations, and um, as a
man, I'm not gonna be in those.
However, as a man, I can say,like, I don't want evil to like
when we start dehumanizingpeople to that extent, and
that's why I'm like as a stateof Texas, now granted it didn't
get passed, but to say, like,hey, I want to make sure I fund

(48:02):
the ability for this pregnantmother to go to a different
state where it's legal there tokind of get around the state
laws that we have.
It just to me, that's that thatto me is like, wow, that's so
hard that we would, you know,we'd say, hey, we don't want to
murder here in Texas, but youcan do that outside of Texas.
And and I know, granted, thatthat's such a hard word, but I

(48:23):
think that's really what it is.
Um, unless you're like, youknow, life begins when.
I think that's the problem.

SPEAKER_05 (48:29):
Okay, that's a great thing to to have that
conversation about because thereare actually really uh no
federal laws on when lifebegins.
It it it is up to the states.
The states have the ones thathave have made those
distinctions.
Yeah.
So uh federal law, there is nowhen life begins.
And that's where a lot ofconversation where people have,
well, it's you know, uponconception, or is it upon first

(48:50):
breath uh that is taken likewhen does life begin?
Is it upon viability?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (48:56):
Uh and so and again, um to me, I I I look at that and
it's like here's a like we savelike baby dolphins in the womb
or like baby elephants in thewomb.
Like it's illegal to kill them.
And so if we we we give animalsmore rights than humans, that's
the part where I just go, ugh,that's that's a hard thing for

(49:18):
me to to take in.
Cause I'm like, we've justelevated animals over human
beings out of like a sense of wefeel bad for the the mother that
doesn't have a hu a lot ofsupport.
But granted, there's a gazillionnumber of people that are trying
to adopt kids right now.
And so that that that to me islike personally, it makes me
like, oh, wounded, hurt for umjust life that's not given a

(49:42):
chance.
That that's that's where I feellike as Christians, we we we
need to kind of like echo thatbecause the law, like I like
what you said, like there is nolaw.
And so what happens is you know,we have God's word, and you
know, we are given our rightsnot by the law, but as a
constitution by our creator.
And I think that's the partwhere if we give up on the

(50:04):
creator, if we give up on Godand say, like, hey, what do we
all think about this?
Then you're inevitably gonnakind of get to a place of um
it's not gonna be God's word,it's gonna be our public
opinion.
And that can get just to be adangerous spot.
So that's where I feel like youend up marginalizing people and
you end up like that's how stufflike uh the darkness can kind of

(50:25):
creep in when you when you talkabout like when we think about
planned parenthood and how itwas started.
It was like a new eugenicworldview of I want to eliminate
African Americans.
So I'm gonna go and put plannedparenthoods or uh you know
abortion clinics in all theselow-income neighborhoods to make
sure that they kill themselvesoff.
And I think that part is justkind of hard for me as a as a

(50:46):
Christian to kind of lean intothat and go, whoa gosh, what is
what's happening?
So I know that I know that Idon't know where your stance is
on that, but I think that'swell, as I was looking at at
what Talerico put out, that'swhere I would push back on him
and be like, Hey, I appreciatesome of the other things that
that you're that you're doing,but man, that's that's hard for
me to handle.
It is.
I want to take one step back forthat plant parenthood.

SPEAKER_05 (51:06):
Planned parenthood original back like 1890, it was
for contraceptive.
You know, that's what womenwanted.
They wanted to be able to havethe decision of when they could.
Then it was is something thatit's thought of like it's a good
start, but then the use of itbecame you're right, putting it
into low-income areas where theyknew people said, if I have a

(51:27):
decision, am I going to haveanother baby that's going to put
a financial burden on me?
Or am I going to uh uh opt out?
And and and that did actuallyaffect a lot of communities, you
know, but that origin of itstarted with the attention of
like family planning.
Sure.
Uh and you know, women are theyhave that right to decide when

(51:47):
they want to have a child.
And at that point in time, uhthere was you know certain
certain state laws or certainlocal ordinances against like
handing out contraceptives to towomen to say, hey, if you're not
ready to be pregnant but you'remarried, you know, here's a
condom.
And then they were like, Oh,can't do that.
Yeah.
But you're right.
It it it is a very difficultsubject.

SPEAKER_02 (52:08):
And I think what makes it hard is it's not like
they said, Hey, let's go to thewhite neighborhoods and hang and
hand these out.
Let's go to the poorer, moreminority neighborhoods to hand
this out because we don't wantmore of them born.
I uh that's kind of where I lookat that.
The the racial intent of thatkind of gets me off sort of
fired up.
Um, and so I I get it that umthere's a you kind of look at

(52:29):
oh, it's we know we don't wantto put too much on families
because they can't afford it andall that.
But I'm like, the intent waslet's limit birth because we
don't want those people here.
And so that's where as aChristian I go, man, that that's
a dignity of human humanity.
That's a that's one of thoseissues.
And so, and granted, that thatwas what 1916 or something.
Yeah, 50s, 60s.

(52:50):
Well, 1916 is when I thinkPlanned Parenthood thing started
with the first birth controlclinic, and then it eventually
kind of went from there.
But and so, you know, MargaretSanger from 1916 probably had a
way different worldview uh thanwe do today.
However, I think it was a I wantto eliminate those people.
It wasn't I want to uh see theflourishing of that community.

(53:13):
And and I think that's where Isort of struggle.
Like we want to see theflourishing of a culture.
And so anyway, when deathbecomes a part of it, which
eventually it kind of I'll giveit to you.
Like it was like at first wejust want to limit the amount of
births that were going on, uh,although it was minority births
they wanted to limit.
Uh, I would say it got to apoint of death.
And that's where when you startadvocating for death and like um

(53:37):
affirming it, now we're in thisdangerous place where we're like
millions of kids or babies wereterminated.
And that just as a as aChristian, that breaks my heart.
Uh not because I'm like onethat, you know, championing uh
abortion or you know, pro-life,but because like that that's not
God's desire and heart for uhhumanity to see it flourish.

(53:59):
I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 (54:00):
I think it's an important conversation because
we're you're talking about youknow being in a position of
legislation, legislating.
You're making laws, all lawshave some kind of moral
foundation.
And the question is gonna bewhich morals are they?
So as a Christian, you go, okay,we gotta get our morals from
God's word.
There may not be currently afederal law about this, or there
may but as Christians, we gottalegislate off of what God's word

(54:23):
says is true.
That's what Scripture says acivil magistrate, you know, a
public governing ruler, um,public official, you know, has a
responsibility before God.
And so the what's what why thisis you know really good is like
our job as pastors is not towrite bills, you know, unless we
are also to become arepresentative.
But and and in the same way,your job as a state

(54:45):
representative would not be to,you know, administer communion
on a Sunday.
So there's a separation anddifferent spheres of um work,
but the conversation isimportant.
Um, because you know, thechurch's role is to speak to the
civil magistrate, you know,speak to um political officials
um and say, hey, we need to havelaws that reflect the truth and

(55:08):
justice and morality ofscripture.
Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05 (55:11):
Yeah, and you're talking about conversation, and
that definitely needs to bedone.

SPEAKER_04 (55:15):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (55:15):
And also listening on on our part, listening from
the people, listening fromcommunities.
Yeah.
Because what are their desires?
And again, if we come to thepoint where it's like the the
the uh church community issaying, here is what we want,
then that should be my role as arepresentative.
Yeah, yeah.
Whether it's it might be evenagainst what I want, but if that
is what that conversation is.

SPEAKER_00 (55:38):
I mean, unless it goes against God's law, right?
Unless you're talking about ifit is something that's immoral,
ultimately acceptable to Godfirst.

SPEAKER_05 (55:44):
Yeah, if it's an immoral act that everybody's
saying we need to do this, okay,whoa, then let's pump the brakes
on that.

SPEAKER_02 (55:49):
Right.
Slavery.
Like we would go, okay, let'swhen someone comes up talking
like that craziness, we're like,no problem.
Like, we need to stop, shut thatdown.
We're not gonna do that.
I think that's the the problem Ithink for a lot of us that we
face is that we can look atmaybe uh an a cultural era where
one sin was like prioritized andlike sort of advocated for, and

(56:11):
then uh it took the church thenhaving influence on the rest of
the culture for that to be shutdown and the true the inhumane
treatment of people like that tobe stopped.
Um, which was obviously that'sthe role of the church to speak
prophetically into the cultureand and to uh to the state, uh
as you know, government has thepower of the sword to enforce

(56:33):
law and to do all that.
And the church has the you knowthe prophetic voice to say, hey,
here's the things that we needto see, justice and
righteousness and and that, andthen to take care of the poor
and to kind of love on peopleand then guide them spiritually,
and then the family ultimatelyis where you know people are
raised up.
So I I just bring that up aslike I know you didn't have
anything to do with writing it,yeah, but I but I do feel like

(56:54):
it's important to kind of whatHolland was saying, is like
where where do the where dopeople's rights come from?
And I think that's that onequestion.
Oh, she is such a sweetie.
She is so cute.

SPEAKER_00 (57:10):
Uh I I think like what what people would be
interested to hear, you know,for you as a representative, or
what I'm interested to hear, youknow, is are you going to, you
know, when you get your billsready, you know, to present
them, is the moral foundation ofthose things going to be the
teaching of scripture and thethe morality uh of uh what you

(57:32):
know the Christian faith says istrue?
Or are you going to be lookingmore to you know some other
direction or source for that?

SPEAKER_05 (57:39):
That's a good question because again, we
talked about how I grew up uhnot having church all the time.
Yeah, but the the pillars thatwere there, like I said, scouts
and scouts does still have thatfaith-based in that, you know.
And y'all look up the scout lawand look up the scout oath, and
those are the things that we tryto again adhere to, and I try to
adhere to.
And you're gonna see in there,it's on my honor, I'll do my

(58:00):
best to do my do my duty to Godand my country, obey the scout
law, keep myself physically fit,mentally awake, and morally
straight.
Love it.
And so, and again, that lastpart morally straight, you know,
mentally awake.
We've talked a little bit aboutthat.
So those are the areas where I'mcoming from, and they do have a
bit of basis within scripturebecause that's where Scouts was
based in.
Um, but beyond that, to alsotalk about uh this abortion

(58:23):
conversation, it also it alsoneeds to include what support
there is for that mother.
Sure.
It can't just be like a hey,don't do this, like you can't
get abortion, and then that'sthe end of the conversation.
It also needs to say, here'ssupport, here's you know, one,
our our state of Texas, we don'thave uh maternity leave for

(58:45):
women who are working, theyeither and if they don't have
support, they either need totake vacation time, take FMLA,
which is an unpaid, we don'thave support for them.
So we also need to have thatconversation of like, okay, if
we are going to make sure thatwe are having uh women bring
babies into this world, we needto take care of them as well.

(59:05):
Because that is a transitionthat's good.
Those first few weeks, which ofthe, you know, the the sleepless
nights uh and those kinds ofthings, if that person is then
expected to say, take care of ababy, drop them off at daycare,
go to work for eight hours, comeback, pick them up from daycare,
spend the night with them, eventhough you're only getting a few
hours of sleep, and just keepkeep repeating that, that also

(59:27):
is in a sense not taking care ofpeople.

SPEAKER_02 (59:32):
Right.
We have a lot of teen moms here,uh, and so we're very familiar
with this.
And it'd be like it's one ofthose things where it's like, I
want, you know, if you're like,hey, what's the plan?
Hey, local church, hey,community of faith, rally around
this person because then youhave the life support, and then

(59:52):
people who are what happens whenyou start off with uh you know
giving people money in some way,even if it's just Family leave,
then there's an expectation thegovernment's going to solve that
problem.
And man, then you take the theability and the the personal
touch away from the community towrap their arms around a person
and help them grow.

(01:00:12):
And I think that it's like wherethe one it's a in what in some
ways, it's what a blessing whenthe government's gonna step in
and kind of provide money here.
But the negative consequence ofthat is it prevents the
community to come togetherbecause oh, you're the
government has taken care of.
That's the part that I sort of Ikind of get.
I not that I'm like anti-helpingpeople, but it I want I would

(01:00:34):
love to see the personal touch.
Like I just talked to a womanwho just had a uh a single mom
who's 20, uh and she chose notto have an abortion.
And I was like, hey, way to go.
I'm so proud of you.
What do you need?
And we're gonna provide a familytook her in.
Like those are the kind of coolthings that I feel like would be
really special to give thechurch a chance, give the

(01:00:56):
community of faith a chance toreally invest in people's lives.
And and again, this comes from amaybe this is not overly
idealistic perspective.
Um, but I really feel like thechurch would love to step into
that realm.

SPEAKER_05 (01:01:08):
Okay.
That would be a wonderful thing,right?
If you have that communities,but not everybody does have a
church community, not everybodygoes to church.
And and so when they're facedwith that situation, a lot of
time it is a very um independentsituation.
They're very, you know, bythemselves if they don't have
that church community.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:25):
And then so then So I guess that's my my my point is
then they they let's say we gavethem money, it would prolong
their independence and lack ofcommunity.
And I and I know we all wanteveryone to have like they get
to choose whatever communitythat is that they want, but at
some point when someone lovesyou really, really well and they

(01:01:48):
are they're involved in yourlife for your your benefit at
their expense, that blessing isso powerful.
So in my head, why not send someof that money to the community
of faith and go, like, hey, areyou guys gonna take care of
these people?
I want to see the record of youguys stepping into people's
lives.
And then all of a sudden, nowyou have uh the ability for the
church to really kind of supportthe system and infrastructure

(01:02:10):
because we already have thesystem of support for people uh
that are in need.
You know, our our little church,we give away about a hundred and
hundred and thirty, hundred andforty thousand dollars away to
help people pay rent, to helppeople uh, you know, when their
transmission goes out, uh, youknow, all the different things
of of when their lives fallapart.
We're involved in their lives.

(01:02:32):
And and I think that's it's abeautiful, sweet thing.
Uh, but sometimes like if peopleare just looking for the the
check, what what's really greatabout this, you have the the
personal aspect of people investin their life as opposed to a
check that comes from thegovernment and then go figure it
out.
So that's and I know they'resocial workers, yeah, but it
feels like the social worker isworking the nine to five.

(01:02:53):
And if you don't get in myhours, then I'm sorry.
Whereas church people, they'reup all hours of the night
serving, loving, caring forpeople.
It's kind of what we do.
And we're built for it becausewe have this mission, this great
mission that comes from God tolove, serve, care for the poor,
to love, care, and serve forthose who are in need.
And I'm not saying that anyone'sintentionally robbing the church

(01:03:16):
of doing that, but when you canget money independent of any
person, you're gonna take it.
And so I think that's the thatalmost robs them of the
community they desperately need.
And that's my opinion on that.
And you can take it for whatit's worth.

SPEAKER_05 (01:03:28):
No, I think one community is a great thing.
When people don't havecommunity, I I that is a tough
road to go down if you don'thave community, whatever that
community is.
Sure.
And and churches provide awonderful community.
Like I said, Scouts, that was acommunity for us, especially as
a kid growing up, you know, thatyou had that group there.
Yeah, it is important to havethem.
Uh, you know, my my dad, havingretired, kind of fell into that

(01:03:50):
role of, well, what does thecommunity here need?
Right.
And he he helped he retired sohe crushed it of that stuff.
You know, and he was great aboutjust saying, All right, well, if
we need this, if we needsomebody to go and fundraise for
this, if we need that, if thiscommunity needs it.
And there'd be times where youknow he volunteered so much and
he got to take me along to a fewthings like and it still sticks

(01:04:10):
with me today.
I was in like seventh grade thathis local Kwanas club did a
Christmas thing for for a fewkids.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (01:04:19):
And I got to be the one that helped out, pick out
some of those gifts and takethem to the family, these
families.
Yeah.
So good.
And it still impacts me to theday, seeing expression of
gratitude that these familiesare supported by a community.
So again, you're talking aboutcommunities, and and the church
is a wonderful community.
You know, that's why I mean oneWells Branch Community Church.
You know, it's not okay.
Yeah.

(01:04:39):
So um that is important, but youdid kind of step into here with,
you know, if if that money couldflow from the government out to
the churches, and that's that'sthe thing that's going to be
stopped right there.
Um, I think it I I we had aconversation a little bit about
that, and I looked up, um, Ithink it's I wrote it down, I
think it's the Lemon versusKurtzman Supreme Court that put

(01:05:00):
the end of, I think certain uhstates were trying to use tax
money to then fund teachersalaries at private schools.
And that was where the SupremeCourt came in.
Uh, this is in the 70s.
Yeah, I think 71.
Yeah.
So they came in and they said,okay, nope, this is we're
putting up a block here becausewe're not gonna allow that.

(01:05:20):
So when that conversation isgonna be a very tough one to try
to run.
Yeah, now you're going againstthe Supreme Court.
Uh, but the the message shouldstill be there.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:30):
The message of saying because the government
does give money to NGOs of allsorts that are helping people do
all sorts of things.
Yeah.
Uh but I do feel like Austin,even the city of Austin, and
maybe this is a city of Austin,might be different.
Like, because they really helpsupport community first, I
think.
Like with uh what's the guy'sname at Community First?

SPEAKER_05 (01:05:47):
Oh, the mobile loads and fishes?
Yeah, Chris Chris.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:49):
Uh is it Chris?
Or is it was it?
Yeah, I can't remember.
It's right behind my house.
Yeah.
Um Alan.
Alan, Alan Graham, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:00):
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Um yeah.
So I cause I think they receivepublic funding of some sort, but
yeah, they're not a church,they're just uh faith-based
anyway, but they're but they arethat kind of thing.
And it's I mean, what they gotgoing over there is awesome.

SPEAKER_05 (01:06:14):
Yeah, I love community first.
Uh I went this last year.
We took this little one to gosee the lights that they have
there.
Um, you know, my wife and I havedonated.
Thanks.
Thank you to uh that was uh PBSto introduce us to that.
They did a special on them uhone year.
I'm like, whoa, that's rightdown the road.
That's right over there.
I had I had zero clue about it.
Um, but then we started gettinginto a conversation about like,

(01:06:35):
well, the here's an organizationthat's definitely helping out
unhouse people and their theirtheir method is effective.
It's it's not, I mean, in right,yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:45):
Everything is effective up until a point.

SPEAKER_05 (01:06:48):
Yeah.
Uh and also, you know,scale-wise, it's it's it's
something you can't scale superhuge.
It does have to, it's impactinga smaller bit of that community,
but it is impacting them and itis effective in certain ways.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:59):
So yeah, I got to preach there.
I mean, like they, you know,invited me out and I come came
and preached there, and it waswonderful.
I I truly was blessed by uheverybody at committee first.
But I do feel like they they arehave some at least some public
support there.
I know, I and I don't want toget into it more because you're
like, yeah, you're well, hey,I'd love to do that, but Supreme
Court, you can't do that.

SPEAKER_05 (01:07:18):
It would make it difficult.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:18):
It would make it difficult.
Can I add one thing?
Yeah, just kind of just goingback.
Um, just to, you know, we'rehere, you're running for um this
office, you know, it's publicoffice, we're pastors.
Uh I would just you made acomment earlier about I would
never understand the abortion,you know, situation as a man,
right?
And I would just I I thinkobviously true.

SPEAKER_05 (01:07:38):
You know, we we there's a limit of a limit, a
limit to how much I canunderstand.
Yeah.
Maybe that's a better way tophrase it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:44):
But right, right, right, right.
My encouragement would just beto you when it comes to bills
and legislation, stand on youknow, God's word.
There might be a lot ofsituations or issues that you
go, man, me as this or as thatcan't fully understand.
And there's sympathy there, youknow.
Um, but at the end of the day,when it comes to law, we got to

(01:08:06):
stand if God's word says thatthis is wrong, then it doesn't
matter, you know, if I don'tunderstand it.
Like I've got to stand on whatGod's word says.
And I think like what at leastfor me personally, like what I
would love to see in publicofficials and government in um
politics is Christians steppinginto these places willing to

(01:08:28):
stand firmly on God's word andsay, we're gonna legislate
according to what God says isright and wrong.
We're gonna legislate accordingto what scripture says is true,
um, and use that as the moralfoundation.
Um so I would just commend thatto you and encourage you in
that.
Let um let the scriptures reallybe, you know, your um uh moral

(01:08:49):
foundation uh when it comes tothese.
The question is, what does theBible say about when life
begins?
Not what the federal governmentsays, not what, you know, it's
what does scripture say aboutthe dignity of human life as
image bearers, when life begins,um, those types of things.
It does.

SPEAKER_05 (01:09:06):
And and that's gonna be a conversation had dozens and
dozens of more times.
Yeah.
You know, and I think evenwithin, you know, certain uh
church circles on when does notchurch circles, but religious
circles, when does life begin?
They're gonna have thatconversation because I I think
there are even gonna be smallsects of that of the Christian
church that will not view it asconception.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:29):
And if you go, I mean that the what's really hard
is as running as a Democrat,then you're gonna have a really
tough go because I think the theplatform is is very much about
uh you know, what is it,reproductive freedom is the way
they would put that.
Like, and so that would just gocounter to the whole party.
So just something to I don'tthink about.

(01:09:51):
Um it's not my top thing, youknow.

SPEAKER_05 (01:09:52):
That that's that's it's there, it's definitely
something I think is needs to beconsidered and and talked about
and and bills put to law.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:59):
So schools, I think, is one of your top things.
Yes, uh public education.
So one of the things uh uh isAustin Austin ISD is part of
your Austin ISD is part of thedistrict, and so is Brown Rock
and Flugerville.
Flugerville, Round Rock.

SPEAKER_05 (01:10:11):
Do you do you like what kind of role do you I mean,
how does the So like what wouldthe legislative branch of the
government have to do with likewhat would you even be able to
do?
Um so conversation I think isgonna be more along the lines of
uh what we would then instructcertain organizations to do.
It would be a bill that wouldput forth to instruct the Texas

(01:10:34):
Education Agency uh that hey,this is what needs to be done,
whether it's a commission likewe talked about earlier that you
know the team put together onmarriage and family.
Like we need uh a review of saidX, Y, and Z to see what is more
beneficial for our students.
So that would be like the firstconversations we probably have.
And then based upon those, thenenact something that would

(01:10:57):
probably alongs again, it'sprobably gonna be working with
the State Board of Education andthe Texas Education Agency
because those are theoverarching um entities which
oversee curriculum, testing, andand things like that.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:10):
So yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 (01:11:11):
Yeah, and but like funding though, the funding
aspect comes from like what thelegislative legislature kind of
dictates the amount per studentthat you would receive for those
that show up at second period onthe day.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:23):
You know, because like gosh, that's tough.
That that's wild stuff, yeah.
Because I think there was evenuh Talerico put in a uh a bill
that wanted to increase like uhteacher pay uh like for uh five
thousand dollar annual but he'she's the one that kind of got
five thousand dollar annualbonuses for educators in high
poverty schools, which passed,which way to go.

(01:11:45):
Uh and then he also putsomething out for he wanted to
increase per student funding by500 bucks, I guess a kid, uh,
and with fair distribution tolow wealth districts with ties
to teacher pay raises.
And that got stuck in community.
So I I do appreciate like thataspect of Hib having kind of an
eye on education.
But the one thing I'm noticing,at least it's in the news a lot,

(01:12:08):
Austin ISD schools have a lot ofF ratings, um, which affects
property values, which affects,you know, I'm not gonna put my
kids in those schools.
And it's like I'm out.
Like it's a lot of like smartkid flight to the charter
schools or to the privateschools, or they're just gonna
move.

SPEAKER_05 (01:12:25):
They're gonna go out to like Ean's ISD, which is just
across that way.

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:29):
Right, right, yeah.
Or like whatever, yeah, yeah.
So I'm like, you know, what Idon't know if this this might be
beyond anyone's pay grade, butlike have you have you thought
through solutions on what thatwhat could be a solution for
that?
Just the problem of failingschools.

SPEAKER_05 (01:12:43):
Yeah.
So uh first, I thinkre-evaluating how schools are
funded.
It's property tax that's donemajority is how school funded.
Yeah, yeah.
And we used to have this weimplemented a while ago, a
couple decades ago, the RobinHood program.
Yeah.
Um my dad hated it, yeah, butunder he hated it, but said, I
understand it.
And where we lived in SanAntonio was a very wealthy area.

(01:13:06):
It was the Alamo Heightsindependent school district.
Yeah.
And he would tell me all thetime, gosh, you know, your
school district gives away Xamount of dollars.
And I said, Oh, that's horrible.
But having been to school thereat this, the teachers that they
were able to employ because theywere able to provide a little
bit better, they were providinguh salary that teachers could
live in the district.

(01:13:27):
Right.
We had many teachers that hadkids that were in the schools.
So teachers were living in thedistrict, teachers were staying
there.
There was not turnover as we seein some of these bigger
districts.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:39):
If you go to Austin ISD, you know, uh a teacher
probably knew, let's say sheshe's fresh out of UT, yeah, and
she gets thrashed because she'slike, I and we actually had one
of because we were here at WellsBranch at um Jolie Johnson
Elementary, and we had a reallygreat teacher, and she was like,
I'm quitting.
Like she was it was her firstyear.
She taught her kid Kidd.

(01:13:59):
She's like, I'm out, I'm out.
My and my wife, who was ateacher, she's like, Don't quit.
Just get out of, move to adifferent school, don't quit.
And now she lived halfway everafter.
I think she's in like Leander orsomething.
Anyway, but so I think there'slike the schools are so like the
uh the conduct, the kids'attitudes, which makes the
teachers like, I'm out, or likethey're just in survival mode.

(01:14:21):
Um, and I don't and again, thisgets into like as someone's just
sort of observing.
I know there's F ratings thatthe T gives, and I know that
they're they're trying to put innew curriculum, they're trying
to, you know, they've taken overuh Houston ISD and just Fort
Worth.
Fort Worth is is taking over.
And they and now Houston had thegreatest, like um they've had a
good turnaround.

(01:14:41):
It's wild.

SPEAKER_05 (01:14:42):
They've had a good turnaround.
They've had some issues withthat though.
They've had a dip in theirstudent population.
You know, they've gone from190,000 students in 2023 when
the takeover happened.
They've dropped like fivepercent of their student
population because familiesdon't want their kids in those
schools to say, like, hey, we'venow lost that that community.

(01:15:03):
We've decided who the schoolboard is and what they're gonna
do, and they lose that.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:06):
And so what's interesting, the people that
left were probably the peoplethat could leave.
And so that's where I'm like,they somehow turned it around
with the lowest income kids thatcouldn't leave, that were stuck,
and they turned it around atHouston I state.
Not and my only thinking it, andthis is probably way beyond what
you could do as a uh a Texasstate representative, but why

(01:15:26):
not make like we're I know thisis we're all about freedom and
uh school boards, and but man,wouldn't it be great if you had
like a top-down, like here's theone system, and we are here are
all of our like kind of like howUT has like all its schools, you
know, um you know, UT Arlingtonor UT uh SA, UT UTSA, it's all
part of the University of Texasschool system or whatever.

(01:15:49):
To me, it seems like, man, whatan opportunity to kind of make
it a uniform standards wherepeople could kind of move in and
out, and you're kind of likeit's the army.
I would love for teachers tokind of like, hey, you have to
serve your time just likeeveryone has to go to Fort Hood
at some point.
You know, you go serve your timethere, and then you know, you
kind of get moved up and you'rebased on your meritocracy of
teaching.

(01:16:10):
I don't know.
That's just my thought on it.
I don't know what if you haveany other thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_05 (01:16:12):
That is, yeah, yeah, it does sound like that's an
army because then you're very,very everything is the same
across the board.
Yeah, which is you're right, ElPaso district versus somewhere
down in the district and downlike in the valley versus Dallas
versus small school districts.
You know, it all depends uponlike how much money do they have
at the time.
What by by kind of standardizingeverything, that's really gonna

(01:16:34):
some people are gonna view thatas like, oh, that's you know,
totalitarian or whatever thedistribution of the same thing
for everybody.
Um better school districts aregonna hate that.
Yeah, the school districts likeEan's, yeah, is gonna be like,
no, no, no, we're doing fine.
Do not touch us.
Don't touch us.
Uh, whereas some other schoolsthat are maybe struggling,
they're gonna be like, well,that might be an option because
then you can kind of come overand maybe we can focus on other

(01:16:55):
other things to help us turnaround.
And there are three things Iwould like us to consider when
like how can we improve schools?
First off, um, it is it is asafe environment.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:05):
So, and that can be broken down, safe from exterior
entities, kind of like like uhhardening of the schools.
Uh is that the right word forit?
Like where you don't know,hardening.

SPEAKER_05 (01:17:15):
I so uh so um the program I worked for, GeoForce,
I worked in Uvaldi ISD.
I worked at the high school, Iworked at the middle school.
Oh wow.
So I was one degree ofseparation from what happened at
Rob Elementary.
I knew the teachers, I didn'tknow anybody personally that was
affected, but I I felt thecommunity.
Yeah, so we need to first talkabout okay, secure schools, a
safe environment from exterior,but also a safe interior.

(01:17:37):
So that is you've talked aboutit with Jolie Johnson.
Yeah, teachers need to be safe.
Yeah, students need to be safefrom one another.
So we need to have a safeenvironment for our students,
right?
So that's something we need towork on uh for our school
districts.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:50):
What do you think of the policy?
I literally don't know.
I'm just like, what would you doto make it more safer?
Like you'd almost have like abodyguard in there for the
teacher or something.
I don't I don't know.
I'm I'm just I have no idea.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:00):
We're yeah, I feel like bodyguard kind of getting
into like a George Oral 1984,really watching everybody.
But but sometimes, you know,especially in schools like
camera systems, simple cameras.
Camera systems should beutilized to make sure that
what's are they allowed to havecameras on school on classrooms
in certain areas, but I don'tknow if all classrooms are
allowed to have that.
That's a great question.

(01:18:20):
That's something I think weshould look at.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:23):
There's like a privacy thing or something about
that, but there shouldn't beright.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:26):
Like what a classroom should be for
learning.
Right.
And you know, if if when whenteachers have their break
period, you know, if it's in theclassroom and they allow
students to come in, that shouldstill be visible.
Yeah, you know, we were alwaystaught anytime you are
interacting with students, it'sit's a two-to-one rule.
Either two students or oneadult, one or two adults, one
student, you know, always havethat two to one rule.
So, you know, and if camerasallow you to kind of make sure

(01:18:48):
that that's always a thing, thenwhy not?
That's here.
I feel like we're bouncingideas.
Yeah, we'll go to the two.
Let's go right put the put abill together.
Um, but yeah, like first isalways a safe environment, both
exterior safe but interior safe.
So teachers need to feel safebecause anybody who works in any
job, if you don't feel safe, youdon't want to work there.
Right.
And and teachers, let's behonest, teachers go to teach

(01:19:10):
because they love the that idea,that idea of teaching.
Teaching is such a a difficultprofession because working with
whether it's elementary agestudents, you have to have that
love of kids that are just gonnaask you why, what, you know,
yeah, all the time.
And and um, or if you're workingwith middle school students who
I think are the toughest to dealwith, uh in terms of like

(01:19:32):
they're still learning how to uhuh communicate, how to act.
Uh, and as a teacher, you'retrying to control them in a
room.
It's a tough job.
But if you want to be a teacher,like I am all for commending you
for that.
So you need to be safe, you needto have safety in your school
because if you are not, you'renot gonna want to do it long.
And then again, we're talkingabout teacher turnover.

(01:19:53):
They're they're gonna come in,not feel safe, and leave.
Um so safe environment.
Um, a quality education.
So uh we've had a lot of shifts.
So so school boards are allowedto kind of identify what type of
education they're going to putforth.
And again, that's where parentshave that opportunity to choose,
to choose their school board andwhere they're going with that.

(01:20:15):
Right.
So that should be, you know,again, if we want to talk about
parents, hey, your school boardmatters.
So if you have not voted in yourschool board elections in the
last 10 years, then you havenobody to complain to about what
your edge your child's educationis about.
They are the ones that canidentify what they want to use.
Now, you know, I'm in favor ofcertain, you know, educations
over others because uh of whatthey put out there, but um, that

(01:20:38):
is parents choosing that boardfor that.
Uh so quality education.
Um, I know we've talked a littlebit about uh previously before
this podcast, but I did mentionthat like I'm not a huge big
person on standardized testing.
But standardized testing has itsmerits.
We've talked about okay, yeah,for for for merit, like how are
they learning, how are theydoing these things?
But um I think we need toidentify opportunities for kids

(01:21:04):
that don't rely uponstandardized testing because
there are those that that can't.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:08):
Yeah, I guess the only problem with that is how
you're gonna evaluate this.
That's a great question.
My kid has dyslexia, and I haveanother kid that there I have
three of my four kids have likea 504 descriptor, which means
that they're assistants.
They're like special ed kids.
And so what that means is likeeach one of them needs extra
help.
But that I only found that outthrough standardized testing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:28):
What are your I was just gonna see, like, what are
your thoughts on in terms oflike again, another intersection
of faith and policy and stuff?
Um like should kids, shouldpublic schools teach about God?
Should we, you know, if you lookback at like the first history
books that were used in America,it's very clearly like Christian
God is at, you know, um thecenter of the history of the

(01:21:51):
nation and the moral foundationagain, um, things like having
Ten Commandments in classrooms,teaching about God, or Bible
stories, Christian values, likewhat how does that play into
your view of education?

SPEAKER_05 (01:22:02):
I think you know, moral stories that are coming
from the Bible, they arebeneficial.
I think kids at a young age doneed to learn that.
Now, if we're gonna use them inschools, we are again gonna come
up.
I think at that particularSupreme Court case is uh was
that Engel versus Vitali?
Also again another issue.

(01:22:22):
Another issue where uh that onewas providing uh time for kids
to do public prayer and and aparticular prayer.
So that one put up the wall forthere.

SPEAKER_03 (01:22:33):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (01:22:33):
Um I putting putting up something like the Ten
Commandments definitely needs tobe done in in classrooms for
like history classrooms, likethat is history and and
something that we should alllearn about.
But at the same time, like thereare other parts of history that
need to be taught as well.
So even prior to you know, ifwe're gonna talk about Old

(01:22:56):
Testament, you know, um thereare other uh um civilizations
that were around cultures thatwere existing.
Also need to be, we have need tohave that discussion where that
needs to be broken down, thatthe family.
The family does need to providea little bit more conversation
to their kids about like, hey, Iknow you're understanding and

(01:23:18):
learning about this, but if ifwe are going to have this
conversation about morals, wehave that based on the Bible.

SPEAKER_02 (01:23:26):
So the T, the Texas Education Agency just put out uh
blue bonnet curriculum, which isexactly that.
It's wild, it's amazing.
It has has pretty much theentire gamut of religion, but
it's like where you where do youget all of your um semantics
from, idioms from?
Here's like you know, the goldenrule, here's where you get this

(01:23:48):
from, here's the story of thegolden rule.
Uh, you know, here's what uh thepainting of the Last Supper,
here's what the Last Supper, youknow.
Then it also goes into, youknow, um Buddha and all the
other it does give a fulldisclosure on that.
And I think it's really excitingto see the tech the state put
out something that does give afuller picture of a historical
worldview that includesscripture.

(01:24:10):
Um and you know, that's whatwhat what's really great is I
think our country was foundedupon biblical principles.
And so I think one of the thingsthat we need to teach his
historically, like you said, islike, what were those principles
that our country was founded on?
And let's not uh get away fromthat.
So anyway, that's that's my onlythought on on that.
Holland, would you what'd youwant to add to that?

SPEAKER_00 (01:24:31):
I was just curious, yeah.
What you're like, you know, iflet I mean Supreme Court can't,
you know, rulings can beoverrules.
Right, that's right.
So you know if they can, if uhwhat's best, you know, if it's
like this is what's best for theeducation of Texas children,
then you know, I'm gonna try totake this all the way to the
top, and because this is whatkids need.
Or if it's like, no, I don'tthink it's important, just kind
of curious where you landed onthat.

SPEAKER_05 (01:24:52):
I definitely think when we talked about this blue
bonnet, if they are, I haven'tlooked at as much into it, and
so homework for me.
Um, but if they are providingthis full picture, yeah, because
I think that's important thatthat children get a full picture
and are able to make choice, youknow, based upon guidance again
from family.
What are they, you know, whatare your parents helping you
learn about?
I think that's important.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:12):
So I think we would both agree, like the family is
primarily responsible,obviously, for the education,
discipline, discipleship of thechildren.
Yeah, but it's kind of like,okay, how how does school
support that?

SPEAKER_02 (01:25:24):
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, you either you everybodyhomeschools.
You either homeschool during theday or you homeschool at night.
And, you know, like becauseeverything my kid learns is
because I either do theirhomework for them or uh I help
them coach them and plead withthem to actually do it.
And so everybody's gonnahomeschool at some point, or if
they're working, they're not,and they're gonna be left to

(01:25:45):
their own devices with some, youknow, a teacher, God bless her
or him or whoever is doing it.
But that is like that is gonnaleave them like with such a like
you said, you had two parents athome.
Yeah, a huge advantage.
And so that wild advantage isgotta be like there's got that's
why that's why you needcommunity, and because I think a
lot of kids are struggling uh tomake it through the school

(01:26:10):
system because they don't havethe support to pull it off, and
they need community.

SPEAKER_05 (01:26:14):
But that's just my I mean, how do you expect a kid to
come home?
Right, maybe help out with likethe younger siblings, make
dinner because parents are stillworking, maybe they're working
two jobs.
That is an immensely difficultthing for that kid, or even
again, those younger kids thatmaybe they're taking care of,
like super hard.
This teenager is still learningthemselves, yeah.
Um, and now they're they'reresponsible.

(01:26:36):
And and that's a toughsituation, and that's where we
kind of you get into theconversation about like, well,
we're gonna go back to that thatcommission on marriage and
family, and how can we try andbetter on the city?

SPEAKER_01 (01:26:45):
Yeah, I'm excited to hear see what that reports that
comes.

SPEAKER_05 (01:26:47):
But then also we have that conversation of you
know, if if families are havingto work multiple jobs, we need
to have a conversation aboutlike you know, what is the cost
of living in certain areas, youknow, because if they can't
afford even with you knowmultiple jobs, what are we gonna
do about that?

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:01):
Is that a And is that is that the responsibility
of the state?
And I and I think that's what'shard, right?
You gotta go at some point, it'sokay if there's either we
eliminate property tax, whichwould be awesome, or or that
person's gonna move.
And and although migration isn'tlike the the the biggest win, it
is an option.

(01:27:21):
And I think sometimes we kind ofgo, oh, we can't have anyone
displaced or moved because thatwould be some sort of negative
thing.
I don't know.
That's the part where I'm like,some that's just part of life.
Like you guys moved a gazilliontimes, and you know, I moved a
bunch as well.
And I think sometimes we kind ofmake that as like the ultimate
negative thing, which it mightbe a great thing.
Why not live in a place whereyou're not stressed with the

(01:27:43):
financial burden of the propertytaxes that you're around it?
But get rid of property tax.
There we go.

SPEAKER_05 (01:27:47):
Ah well, then again, you're getting rid of a lot of
like income for the state thatespecially goes to schools.
But to kind of flip this, youknow, have you ever uh seen
these these uh news clips fromwherever that's like go to Italy
because of a dying town and buythis house for like one euro,
but you got to renovate it andlive there.
I don't know about y'all, but II certainly love driving through
some of these smaller towns inTexas and being like, man, what

(01:28:09):
would it take for us to livehere?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, but that that questionis like a farmer.
Be a farmer.
What is the job there?
And that's the thing is some ofthese small towns in Texas are
struggling because people areleaving them.
They don't want to be farmersanymore, but and they're they're
moving to cities where they'relooking for employment.
Like Austin, we you know, we hadthat surge of people, especially
you know, with hope tech andwith tech that are coming here

(01:28:32):
and and yeah, they're driving uphousing prices.
So the people who originallywere here, that's tough.
Property tax is a tough thing toovercome.

SPEAKER_02 (01:28:40):
You can you can really talk about you have a
case for trying to case, or likejust think even if they just
left it, like whatever youbought it at, that's where it's
stuck at for the rest of yourlife.

SPEAKER_05 (01:28:48):
Okay, you're gonna you really get into what
California does here.
California has a a limitation onproperty tax increases.
Like it's real hard.
Uh um a friend who is moving toCalifornia, her father bought it
in the 1960s, right?
And he's had minimal increaseson his property.
It's it's like one percent eachyear.
And then when it getstransferred, it's when it gets

(01:29:10):
transferred, as long as it'sinherited, okay, she can inherit
it at the same property taxrate.
Wow.
So, you know, but that's that'sCalifornia, that's California.
That means you have to move outthere.
But you know, I I also thinkabout I think about you know,
these small towns in Texas,like, okay, well, if we can find
ways that like employment cancan come to these, we can have
more affordable housing.

(01:29:31):
Everybody wants to live in thebig cities, and I understand
that, and I'm very fortunate,again, fortunate that my off and
I, we had a great jobs that wecould afford to live here.
Yeah, but that is a conversationthat that does need to be had.
You know, what is theresponsibility of the
government?
Is it to assist?
Is it to limit what is paid?
Is it to say, hey, you know,maybe we need to talk to some of
these small chamber of commerceuh in small towns and be like,

(01:29:53):
hey, what opportunities do youhave for people to move here?
Um, is it, you know, if is it uhemployment process?
Problems, or do people not wantto move there because maybe
there's no community thatthey're associated with?
You know, how can we plant achurch?
Yeah.
Plant a church.
That could be one.

SPEAKER_02 (01:30:09):
Um in like all that.
I I agree.
Like all the different all theamenities, I guess, I don't
know, amenities is the rightword.
Kind of getting people in there.
And that's where the uh as apolitician, is that your role to
talk to the private sector andsay, hey guys, can you guys it's
not it's not my role.
Okay.
Like like who does that?
I mean, someone's gotta think oflike that.

SPEAKER_05 (01:30:33):
Or a chamber of commerce to be like, you know,
and again, that would also be arepresentative who is a
representative of certain areas.
Like, how can we increase ourpopulation in our in our neck of
the woods?
You know, I'm not gonna I'm nottelling anybody not to move to
Austin.
But if you're coming here,please understand that it is a
pretty expensive place to live.
Right.
You know, the people that Iwould be representing if

(01:30:55):
elected, yeah, like that is aconversation we're gonna have.
Like Austin is not a cheapplace.
Right.
Okay.
Now, if you're looking to cometo Texas, uh there are areas
that are more affordable, butthey don't have everything that
Austin has or everything thatDallas has or whatever the
cities have.
So that's you know, it's it'swhat are your trade-offs there?
Yeah.
And again, if we can havecommunities set up that are

(01:31:18):
willing to say, hey, we needmore people in this small town
because we're we're a dyingtown.
And again, maybe you buy aproperty for 10 bucks and you
have to renovate it and livethere for 10 years, and then you
know, that could be a way to tryand try and help get uh get
those communities growing.
That's good, man.
So actually, I I had aconversation with my wife.
I said, you know, withimmigration that we have here in

(01:31:39):
Texas, and we're seeing, and Iand we drive, I love driving
through the hill country andseeing some of these small towns
um that are just look like I seeabandoned houses, I see houses
that haven't been, you know.
What is that town doing to tryand bring people back to them?
You know, maybe is there alanguage barrier?
Are they are immigrants comingto big cities because they know
that there is a a language thatthey can speak?

(01:32:00):
So could a chamber of commerceor could a church say, come
here, we have uh uh classes foron learning English, and we're
gonna bring you in and say, wewant you to be part of our
community and let's help you.
And if one of the biggestbarriers that you have right now
is a language barrier, how canwe work on that?
That's good.
Yeah, uh, so that was like aconversation that I was having

(01:32:20):
because we were driving up pastWaco to Lake Whitney.
Um, and there was a small townthat was like, Oh, this is a
cute town, it has a littlestore.
Oh, this is so great.
But I'm like, I see an emptyhouse here, I see an empty house
there, I see an empty househere.
It's like I wonder what smalltowns are doing to try and bring
people back in.
And I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:37):
That's I think Tulsa at one point was paying people
ten thousand dollars a pop tohave people move there.

SPEAKER_05 (01:32:42):
There were there were some places like Arkansas
really trying to increase peopleto come to their street.
They did that.
Yeah, you did.
How did it turn out?

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:47):
Uh they love it, they're still there, found a
church.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Hey, what are the things thatyou want to la we have only a
couple more minutes?
What else?
What else you got?

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:56):
Um, is there anything?
You know, you talked about somethings that you really would
like.
Uh probably last question forthese uh you really loved about
hey, here's what James did thatI, you know, I really want to
keep going.
Is there anything that you werelike, I would do this
differently?

SPEAKER_05 (01:33:12):
Right now, I don't have it.
I'm not saying that it isn't, itdoesn't exist.
Okay.
Um, but right now what I havebeen looking at are the things
that I'm like, oh, I like this.
And if it didn't pass, like, oh,I like this, how can we champion
that?
Right now, that's been my mysidestep research.
So uh give me a little time andI will come back with like, hey,
James, you know, if he had thisproposal, I'm like, I'm not

(01:33:33):
sure.
I'm I 100% agree with this.
I haven't really delved intothose right now at the moment.
But okay, that's fair.

SPEAKER_02 (01:33:40):
Well, I appreciate you, man.
Thanks for thanks for coming on.
Oh, I didn't get to say my lastthing.
Oh, say your last thing.

SPEAKER_05 (01:33:45):
Uh on education.
It was three things.
Like the security, we we we gotinto a sidebar.
Don't worry.
Uh, the security, so like uh uh,you know, um a safe environment,
uh, the quality education, andI'm gonna be honest with y'all,
I know it's gonna cost money,but I think we need to feed our
students.
I don't know what y'all thinkabout kids who are hungry.
Oh, yeah.
They can be mean, they can becrowded, they can be

(01:34:07):
destructive.
And what happens during thesummer So during my summer
program with GeoForce, there wefed the kids.
They had breakfast, lunch,dinner, and I had a I had a
suitcase that was always filledwith like granola bars, uh, I
carried apples and oranges.
We had snacks.
When you when I had kids saythis is the first time I've had
three meals in like one day,that yeah, that that kind of

(01:34:28):
breaks your heart.
That that that that hits youright in right in your feels,
and you're like, what do youmean?
Especially as somebody who neverreally experienced that.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean that so yeah, how do Iexpect a kid who how do I have
an expectation of a of a young,either a young adult when
they're in high school, aelementary aged student, a kid,
how am I expecting them to one,be attentive, uh not lash out if

(01:34:52):
they are hungry.
And unfortunately, again, we'vetalked about economic uh issues
in the home.
Sometimes food is not availablefor them.
Yeah.
And and if they're coming toschool hungry, that is starting
off on a man use the church.

SPEAKER_02 (01:35:06):
Like, say, church, go and be a part of feeding kids
and making sure they havelunches, making sure they have
especially during the summerstuff, man.
That would be huge.
Um, but yeah, I appreciate that.
That's that's so yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (01:35:18):
That's the last, that's my third.
No, I like it.
I like it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:35:20):
Man, thanks for being here, John.
Uh on thank you as always.
Hey, thanks so much forwatching.
If you have any questions, wecan always bring John back.
Text in at 737 231 0605.
We would love to hear from you.
Uh hey, thanks so much forwatching.
And from our house to yours,have an awesome week of work.

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